SAGINAW, MI — A Saginaw man accused of lighting fire to a female friend's home will spend a year under house arrest.

Zacharie S. Konsdorf, 35, appeared before Saginaw County Circuit Judge Fred L. Borchard on Monday, Jan. 28, and pleaded guilty to preparing to burn personal property worth more than $1,000 but less than $20,000.

The arson preparation charge to which Konsdorf pleaded carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison; the original arson charge carries a 20-year maximum penalty.

Prosecutors will recommend that Borchard sentence Konsdorf, who last lived at 1803 Cass, to one year under house arrest, one year under GPS monitoring, and probation. Konsdorf also will have to pay restitution.

Saginaw County Chief District Judge M. Randall Jurrens wrote last year that Konsdorf was a “long-time acquaintance” of the woman, who lived in a home with two children and their father on Valley near Weiss and Mackinaw in Saginaw Township.

Testimony from Konsdorf's preliminary hearing before Jurrens showed that Konsdorf was sending text messages to the woman throughout the night and that when the woman rejected his invitations to join him to play pool, his messages became “more ominous.” Konsdorf messaged the woman, “I'm not scared of police, but children are scared of shadows” and “Can of gas, all I need is a match,” Jurrens wrote.

When the woman came home, she “found the yard tore up with vehicle tire tracks,” Jurrens wrote, and the bottom 4.5 feet of the house's “fire resistant siding” was “blackened” and “burnt.” The woman saw car mats “emitting a strong odor of gasoline” laying against an adjacent tree, the judge wrote.

Jurrens wrote that when speaking to police, Konsdorf said “I messed up,” that he “used gasoline,” and that he was “upset … (she) was with someone else.”

Konsdorf also pleaded guilty as charged to separate counts of possessing the controlled substances hydrocodone and oxycontin and operating a motor vehicle on a suspended or revoked license-second offense from an unrelated case. His sentence from that case will run concurrently to the arson sentence.